Wednesday, October 12, 2016

More evidence that the real story in 2016 is the Trumpists

Here are some of the day's results from the HuffPollster showing that voters, particularly Trump supporters, know what isn't so. Also below is a revised forecast showing Hillary stays in the lead.

MOST TRUMP SUPPORTERS THINK TAPE CONTROVERSY IS A DISTRACTION - Mark Blumenthal: “Despite an uproar over the release on Friday of a video in which Republican nominee Donald Trump can be heard making sexually aggressive and lewd remarks about women, SurveyMonkey’s tracking data suggest that the controversy has served mostly to reinforce rather than counter existing voter attitudes.... The issue is not a lack of awareness. By Sunday night, 78 percent of registered voters nationwide had heard ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ of the coverage of the 2005 tape of Trump, with 14 percent saying they had heard ‘only a little’ and only six percent ‘none at all.’... While most voters are familiar with the story, more say they consider Trump’s comments ‘a distraction to the campaign’ (56 percent) than ‘an important issue to discuss’ (42 percent).... Far more voters say the controversy ‘makes no difference in your support of Trump’ (57 percent) than say it makes them less likely to support him (38 percent), with most of the latter responses coming from Democrats and Clinton supporters.” [SurveyMonkey]

CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE POPULAR IN THIS ELECTION - Nick Bayer: “Even though there is no credible evidence that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew ahead of time that the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was going to be attacked, 90 percent of the Donald Trump supporters interviewed believe she ‘definitely’ or ‘possibly’ knew and did nothing to prevent it. By contrast, only 35 percent of Clinton supporters feel the same way. Similarly, the poll found that 68 percent of Trump supporters still believe that President Barack Obama ‘is hiding important information about his background and early life.’ On the other hand, 84 percent of Clinton supporters consider this ‘definitely not true.’ Clinton supporters are mainly suspicious about Trump’s tax returns. Eighty-five percent of them said they believe Trump is either ‘possibly’ or ‘definitely’ not releasing his tax returns ‘because they would show his close financial ties to political and business figures in Russia.’ A much lower number of Trump supporters ― 46 percent ― believe the same. [HuffPost]

But Hillary is staying in the lead.

FORECAST UPDATE: TRUMP IS IN MAJOR TROUBLE REGARDLESS OF TAPE - Hillary Clinton has an 89 percent chance of winning the presidency, according to the Huffington Post’s presidential forecast. That’s because she garners 273 electoral votes ― enough to win ― just among states in which her win chances are 90 percent or above. In the last two days Wisconsin and Michigan have broached that 90 percent likelihood mark, shifting from battleground states to probable Clinton wins. Trump could win all 7 states in the battleground section ― which now includes South Carolina ― and still lose the election. The Senate still looks like a probable Republican majority, with a 69 percent chance they’ll hold at least 51 seats. [Presidential forecast, Senate forecast]